NEW DELHI: The election mood fills Rajasthan like a flood, inundating everything in sight. Lohagarh Stadium in Bharatpur too is filled to the brim. A throng of people — young, old and middle-aged, all tough and wiry — from around Bharatpur and surrounding tehsils like Bayana, Rupbas, Weir and Nadbai have gathered to hear the Prime Minister.
It’s certainly a not-to-be missed event in these parts, a former princely state in northeast Rajasthan, closer to Agra than to Jaipur, and seen as an extension of Brajbhoomi.
The BJP is expecting to do well or at least pull through in this area, particularly in the southern bits of Bharatpur district, aided partly by Congress candidate selection goofups and on the strength of their own candidates. Nagaur too is a fighting zone. That’s why UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s rally was followed by the PM’s today, Wednesday.
The BJP is keenly following trails that promise the political version of dal-baati-choorma, Rajasthan’s staple.
As one goes north in Bharatpur district, towards the old Mewati town of Kaman, rich in Krishna lore, it’s considered a Congress stronghold, a sureshot for the Grand Old Party (GOP), just as the Gujjar-dominated Bayana tehsil, in the south, is seen as BJP’s. Nonetheless, a subtle undercurrent cannot be missed. Even in Bayana, Bharatpur and Weir, which BJP leaders claim they will retain, the constant topics of discussion are farmer distress, jobs, LPG prices, demonetisation, GST, the Dalit angst and, of course, the caste of the candidate. And yes, CM Vasundhara Raje’s standoffishness. “We organised a big dinner for her, with her favourite soup, but she chose to have hers in her room,” a wealthy patron of the BJP laments, only to quickly add that the local MLA “is accessible, has a clean record” and may carry the day.
The beatific smile on the faces of those gathered to hear the PM — mostly seated on the green carpet spread for them — shows the Modi mantra still has its pull. The thunderous applause of old, though, is now restricted to the bits when he talks of the region’s valour, about the local heroes of the yore. Like when he says “Britishers were defeated 13 times in Bharatpur”; not so much when he focuses his attack on ‘Naamdaar’ (Rahul Gandhi).
The response is massive when the PM asks the crowd to repeat ‘Bharat mata ki Jai’. All hands go up, followed by the now-familiar ‘Modi Modi’ chants. To the largely mixed crowd, Modi tries to explain how the Congress’s “dynastic politics” has “ruined the country”. “They’re not interested in the betterment of your family, but of the (Gandhi) family.”
More than the Gandhi family, though, the Pilot family has a recall value in these parts. Congress state chief Sachin Pilot’s father, Rajesh Pilot, is from this part of Rajasthan. That has immense salience in more ways than one — more than region, caste pride over the idea that a Gujjar (Pilot’s community) can become a CM is at work.
Modi has a go at this factor. “The Congress only churns out leaders from their families,” he says. But there’s a touch of nervousness. A BJP supporter at the rally later quips, “Who knows who’ll be CM? The Congress has four contenders!”
But the PM’s heavy artillery strike on the Congress is on multiple fronts — caste politics, corruption, and 26/11 Mumbai terror strike. When the last point does not quite elicit the expected level of anger, he adds, “and the Amjer blast”. Then he compares how, during the last four-and-ahalf years, there’s been no major terror attack. He also cites how the Congress has never made a comeback in any state where it has been routed — Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, even Madhya Pradesh (which too has polls) — and how these states have seen remarkable development thereafter. Considered a swing state, Rajasthan ususally sees a change of government every five years, and that’s the trend the Vasundhara Raje Government is trying to buck.
The other issue this election, farm distress, also finds tangential reference from the PM: “Had the first Prime Minister of India been Vallabhbhai Patel, the son of a farmer, the issue of farm distress would never have struck our nation!” He links it to the present as well, “The Swaminathan Commission had given its report on MSP 10 years ago. But the remote-control government run by Madam never paid heed to it. Had 1.5 times the production cost been given as MSP 10 years earlier, no farmer would have been debt-ridden.”
Corruption too finds a mention, almost as a rebound to Rahul Gandhi’s dig a few days ago about BJP states going to the polls being so full of corruption cases “that he got confused”. The PM’s counter: “So many scams — chopper scam, coal scam, 2G scam!” It is however his mention of army jawans, comprising a sizeable section of the voters, and OROP that find resonance. Not foreign policy achivements. Or his angry quip on Congress leader Raj Babbar’s remark comparing Naxals with revolutionaries.
Or the Congress “audacity” in asking proof for the surgical strike. Dharamveer, a farmer who leaves the rally a little earlier with his group from a nearby village, asks his neighbour, “Yeh kya bol rahe thhe Modiji, surgical strike?”
Political playbook
The Bharatiya Janata Party is expecting to do well or at least pull through in the Bharatpur area, particularly in the southern bits of the district, aided partly by Congress candidate selection goofups and on the strength of their own candidates.